


The Miracle Worker

by Crewe



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Family Feels, Flashbacks, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 11:40:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8142442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crewe/pseuds/Crewe
Summary: (Major spoilers for episode 68)
Scanlan is used to saving his friends.
He's not used to failing.





	

The first thing that goes wrong is Ripley reappearing too far away.

 

It’s not actually the first thing that goes wrong; this entire fucking fight has just been one disaster after another, but it’s the first thing that goes wrong in this particular (fatal) sequence of events.

 

Scanlan can see Ripley’s eyes trained across the crater, ignoring not only him but also somehow _Grog_ in her dogged focus on Percy.

 

Percy, who won’t survive the next several seconds unless he does something _now_.

 

Grog’s hurled axe buries itself in Ripley’s shoulder, but she isn’t down yet and she’s already cocking her pepperbox and isn’t it ironic that after all the effort Scanlan went through to make sure Percy’s soul wasn’t destroyed by the List here it is happening anyway.

 

There’s nothing he can do. He hurls his sword.

 

Mythcarver flies through the air, its faint hum echoing Scanlan’s desperation… and it clatters to the ground a few feet off, useless.

 

Ripley takes aim and Percy can’t survive three more shots, he won’t make it out unless Scanlan can pull off a miracle, one of his patented crazy plans that somehow always work anyways, but there’s no time, there’s no _time_ , he’s all out of miracles—

 

The best he can do is let out a wordless yell, desperately trying to distract her just long enough to miss her shot, to give the rest of the party time to heal Percy, to shove a potion down his throat or just enough healing magic to get him on his feet, he’s done this before, he’s saved his own life and the lives of his friends like this before, _look at me, look at the dancing gnome, this is what I’m for, look at ME_ —

 

Ripley’s eyes glance at him sideways and her hand twitches, but not enough, the bullets hitting true and sinking into Percy’s body. Even from across the crater, in the shadow of the log, Scanlan can see the life leave his body.

 

_But we just got the airship._

Vex starts screaming and Vax and Keyleth are going to break down as soon as the initial shock fades and Orthax is gone but Ripley is still here and Scanlan—stops.

 

There’s no time to panic, so he doesn’t.

 

For some ridiculous reason, Ripley censors her curses as she prepares to run, and if it were any other moment Scanlan would laugh.

 

Instead, his voice comes out sharp and level in a way it never does as he tells her, “It’s okay, you can curse. You’ve killed one of us.”

 

Saying it doesn’t make it feel more real. There’s nothing more real than seeing it happen, than trying to stop it and failing.

 

He can’t let her escape, it’s more than just the danger she poses now, this is personal, she killed _Percy_ , and he doesn’t even really like Percy all that much ( _turning to throw a punch in the garrison, only mostly a gambit_ ) but he’s part of his goddamn _family_ ( _whispered schemes and laughs and the gleam in his eyes as they painted pictures in their imaginations of their family flying through the sky on their very own airship_ ) and the rest of the party is falling apart, it’s all up to him to stop her—

 

It probably won’t work. That fucking cloak (maybe that’s the real first thing that went wrong, letting Ripley get the cloak. Or maybe it was not killing her then and there when they found her in that jail cell.) stops magic, or something, they aren’t sure, but this is the last thing he has, a gambit he’s used before, please, it has to work—

 

Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere pops up around Ripley, and it stays there.

 

It worked.

 

It would have worked earlier.

 

It might have saved—

 

No time to think about that. Now is the time to end it, once and for all.

 

Scanlan scoops up Mythcarver from off the ground and doesn’t even spare a thought to resent it for not hitting its target. He makes his way over to to the sphere—and maybe spares a thought to appreciate the panic on Ripley’s face.

 

Grog follows him. He knows he can rely on Grog to keep it together until this is done, thank the gods ( _maybe if the gods cared Pike would be here_ ), and that’s a relief because if Scanlan has to support the rest of Vox Machina then at least he knows Grog will be there, a solid wall at his back.

 

He’d seen Grog on the ground before, just like Percy.

 

\--

 

_Grog seems so diminished in the snow._

_Somehow, eight feet of muscled goliath, the same eight feet that stood with crossed arms at Scanlan’s back while negotiating, that seemed so solid beneath him when he carried  the gnomes like they were nothing, those same hundreds of pounds seem so much less when they are just flesh and bone and not rage, and laughter, and pride, and loyalty._

_All of those things were taken by that sword, the sword that Grog trusted him enough to show him, that he knew was bad but never expected to take so much so quickly, to take his_ brother _and leave him bereft in the snow after what should have been a victory._

_All he can do is beg Pike to save him, pour a potion down his throat on a half-baked desperate theory, and pray._

\--

 

In that same sharp, level voice, Scanlan orders the team over to the sphere—they only have about a minute to get her, they can’t afford to fall apart just yet, and he will pull them together with teeth and nails if he has to.

 

Keyleth looks about a second from being completely useless, run ragged and exhausted and coming apart at the seams, but she stumbles over regardless, tears streaming down her face and desperation and hopelessness replacing her usual cheer.

 

\--

 

_The grin he was just barely hiding matches Keyleth’s as Burt Reynolds scams the guard until he, flustered, releases their party members and sends them out the door. Scanlan leaves with a smirk and a parting quip and catches up to the embarrassed druid._

_It’s a mystery how the goody two-shoes nature princess is the one always on the wrong side of the law, but it’s okay. She has a good lawyer._

\--

 

Vex won’t come. She stopped screaming, at least, but she’s dropped off her broom onto the log by Percy’s body and refuses to join them by the sphere.

 

“No, I won’t, I’m staying with Percy—“

 

“Yes you are,” Scanlan cuts in, with that same level tone, because Vex is normally much better at putting on that strong façade but this has completely blown it open, there are tears streaming down her face and her hands are shaking but she draws her bow and that’s fine, that’s enough, he needs to move on.

 

He’s only seen her fall apart once before.

 

\--

 

_Scanlan can see the cracks in Vex’s mask as Saundor continued, as she takes him entirely too seriously. He doesn’t know if the rest of the party sees just how much she’s taking this to heart—maybe her brother does, but even Vax isn’t as good at reading people as Scanlan._

_And maybe he was on board with the diplomacy plan to get them in here, but no douche in a tree is going to make wicked, brilliant Vex’ahlia look like_ that _, so when Vex looks back at them to ask, in a bitter voice, “Are we still pretending to like this_ fuck _?” like there’s any chance the answer will be yes when he dares insult a member of their family right in front of their eyes, before her brother can even so much as draw breath to speak Scanlan locks eyes with her and answers._

_“Nope. Fuck him.”_

\--

 

Scanlan glances around as Vox Machina arrays themselves around Ripley. They’re only missing the one, unless he just can’t see—oh, there.

 

“Vax, are you with us?” he demands, as the rogue finally stumbles over. Kynan is watching Vax with wide eyes, and there’s definitely a story there, but for once Scanlan is not interested in stories.

 

Vax seems mostly shocked, like he still can’t quite believe what just happened. He probably thought that if anybody was going to die for real, it would be him.

 

Scanlan certainly thought so.

 

\--

 

_Scanlan looks down over the short railing at the prone, bleeding form of Vax with a tiger (a fucking tiger man, what?) looming over him, too far away for his spells to reach. He hasn’t slept in days and he has no idea what’s going on, but that’s Vax down there, Vax’ildan who wears his heart on his sleeve like it won’t get him hurt and then asks Scanlan how he can keep smiling, who takes everything too seriously and loves everyone too dearly and throws his life at danger to keep it from his friends._

_Scanlan sees himself standing at a window calling down with healing magic in a desperate bid to save him from a vampire, sees himself at the last minute aiming a fireball at a civilian so it wouldn’t hit his friend, and you can trust Vax to go flinging himself off cliffs but you can also trust Scanlan to catch him._

_He draws Mythcarver and leaps._

\--

 

Scanlan meets Ripley’s eyes before he drops the spell. The rest of the party is too wrapped up in grief, but he’s holding it together, he can speak for Percy, he can make sure she knows that it doesn’t matter, that _he_ beat her, that this victory ( _defeat_ ) is Percival de Rolo’s.

 

“This isn’t us killing you. This is Percy.”

 

The sphere disappears.

 

They kill her brutally.

 

Mythcarver sings a death march as Scanlan cuts the de Rolo crest into her forehead, the way they had once carved it into the sky above Whitestone as a symbol of rebellion. Percy isn’t there to deliver the final blow, but he can make sure he leaves his mark.

 

When it’s done, Keyleth returns to Percy’s side and she and Vex try futilely to heal him. Scanlan can only feel a brief pang of annoyance at the waste of energy, energy they’ll need if they’re going to come up with a real plan to actually bring Percy back. They’re all exhausted. They don’t have the strength to waste on this.

 

\--

 

_Him and Tiberius bicker like children in the Underdark, trading insults and spells like they won’t need them to survive later. It’s ridiculous, silly, wasteful, but it doesn’t matter, they laugh anyways because Tiberius waving his arms about while shouting without sound is hilarious no matter the circumstances, and Scanlan can’t resist the chance to get one up on his fellow caster._

_Tiberius is gone too now, died without his friends behind him, but Scanlan can’t blame himself for that one, he can’t. Tiberius_ left _, he left them to pursue his own path. He was already gone when it happened, they couldn’t possibly have known to go help him, they couldn’t possibly have been there to save him._

_He was still family. But at least they didn’t have to watch him die._

\--

 

He just needs to keep it together a little longer.

 

If they can hold it together they can still save Percy. Give Keyleth a chance to rest and they can teleport back to Whitestone, back to Pike, Pike, Pike, god, _Pike, I’m sorry, I tried to keep them all safe, I tried so hard—_

He watched Pike die too.

 

He won’t think about that.

 

Scanlan takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders.

 

The rest of the party can grieve. He’ll come up with something.

 

He always does.

 

( _Except when he didn’t._ )

 

( _I’m sorry, Percy._ )

 

( _I tried._ )

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I have ever written and finished and it's because of a stupid gnome who shits in beds and tried to seduce his daughter before realising who she was what has Sam Riegel done to me.
> 
> Alternate title: I have a lot of feelings about Scanlan and you should too.


End file.
